After a few days of practising together with me, Nysse has found the courage to go out on his own. Quite cautiously, and only for five minutes or so, but with determination and curiosity.

There’s a lot out there that still scares him. A squealing child or a passing garbage truck is enough to send him running back.

He is definitely not fond of the deep, wet snow, and sticks to the paths that I’ve trampled in the yard when I’ve been out with him. It can’t be nice to have your fluffy soft stomach brush against snow. I know I wouldn’t like it.

In other news, cats’ crepuscular lifestyle doesn’t go together well with photography, at all. At least here his dark colour comes in handy.

Who says you shouldn’t play with food? I’m not advocating for food fights or throwing spaghetti on the ceiling, but if jack-o-lanterns are OK, why wouldn’t it be equally OK to use cucumbers and grapes for sculpting?

Piles and piles of fresh snow in the garden today.

I keep taking photos of Viburnum buds almost every year, and it never gets old. I love the contrast between the vibrant pink and green of the buds and the stark white of the snow, and the tender softness of one and the sharp coldness of the other.



It’s also fascinating to see just how much snow can clump up and be supported on almost nothing. That seed head is almost all air, just a few thready, wispy stalks. If I tried to put things there and make them balance, I’d probably break the stalks and drop everything. But when fluff gets to settle there naturally, it works.

Nysse has been less active recently – sleeping more, exploring less, spending less time trying to steal food at dinnertime. If he were human, I’d say he’s acting depressed. But it’s hard to figure out what (if anything) is wrong when he can’t talk. It’s just like having a baby again.

Too little food? Entirely possible, since we’re working off standard portion sizes and random guesses.

Lonely and missing his previous family? Realizing that this is his new reality and he’s not going back?

Bored and understimulated, since he’s cooped up indoors instead of wandering around freely?

When in doubt, try everything. Which is the opposite of the scientific method where you vary one thing at a time, and probably not the best way to find out the answer, but hopefully the best way to get him happier again. We’re upping his food ration, and I’m also cautiously experimenting with taking him outdoors.

Morris has helpfully been demonstrating for Nysse how the doors work – you walk up to the line in the middle, really close, and sit there, and then a human comes and opens them. Nysse imitates him, but when I open, he just looks and listens and smells, but doesn’t actually dare go out. So I’ve gone out with him to keep him company – he seems to feel safer that way.

Morris hasn’t given up on us yet.

He turns up at the French doors every other day or so. He comes inside, where he gets an energetic but seemingly friendly nose boop from Nysse. Morris then either leaves again, or cautiously walks around the house – with Nysse trailing him to keep a close eye on things – until he gets himself into a corner that he cannot get out of without walking past Nysse, which he doesn’t dare do. I rescue him by lifting Nysse away, and he relievedly makes a beeline for the door. He mostly looks anxious about the whole experience, but he keeps coming back.

Nysse, meanwhile, exudes an air of curiosity and territorial protectiveness, but seems neither aggressive nor overly anxious. As long as Morris’ presence doesn’t bother him too much, I guess we can keep this up. I’m curious to see where their relationship goes.

The usually-annual post-Christmas party with the extended family, that we could actually have this year. I wasn’t in the mood for photography so there’s just the one, of Ingrid folding napkins.

Yesterday’s midday sun throwing shadows off the gravel on the street.

Look, it’s the sun!

Clear skies for the first time in a long while, at the right time of the day, combined with a long, straight stretch of empty space in the right geographical orientation.

The year 2021 passed under the sign of the coronavirus pandemic, just like the one before it. The restrictions and quarantine measures are starting to feel normal in a way, but also to chafe and bother me. My brain is growing dull from lack of stimuli. I’ve never had such low energy and activity levels as I did this year. Last year I cared about infection and mortality rates; now I maybe look at some high-level curves occasionally. (Current situation: cases close to reaching last winter’s peak levels, death rates low and flat, largely due to a high number of vaccinations.)

This year we have vaccines, at least, of several brands and several types. They were made available gradually, starting with the elderly and other at-risk parts of the population and then gradually to younger age groups. I got my first dose in June and the second in August. Currently the age cut-off is at 12 years so even Ingrid got her first dose in autumn.

Covid tests are also widely available, both rapid at-home tests for verifying you are not infected despite having no symptoms, and lab tests for verifying infection in case you do have symptoms.

None of us in the family have had covid-19 as far as we know.

I’ve been working from home all year. Restrictions on contact and movement were lighter in October and November, so I spent one to two days in the offices (either at Urb-it or at tretton37) but then it was back to full time work-from-home again.

I find it hard to remain focused in all the online meetings so I knit to help keep my brain busy during the slower parts. I’ve knit a total of eleven pairs of socks this year, nine for myself and two for others.

In other work-related events, I moved on to a new customer assignment in the beginning of the year, at Urb-it, a sustainable urban logistics company. It took half a year before I even met my colleagues IRL.

Both Urb-it and tretton37 managed to have Christmas parties at least, which is more than we got last year, and tretton37 even squeezed in a conference before the restrictions were tightened again.

Nearly no travelling this year, just like last year. We went for a three-day hike in Tiveden, and I hiked the first few sections of Kuststigen. Missed our annual ski trip, and our annual Estonia trip, as well as my annual ski tour.

You can tell that a year is eventless when I can remember every single time we went to the cinema, and count these on the fingers of a single hand. The latest James Bond movie, Dune, and the latest Matrix movie. There wasn’t much more of other culture either – during the more relaxed months of autumn, we saw the musical Forever Piaf, and two dance performances (one, two).

Schools for Ingrid’s and Adrian’s age groups mostly worked as normal, with classroom instruction rather than distance learning, so they both had normal years. There are very strict rules in place about any respiratory symptoms, though, so they both need to stay at home for the smallest cough or sniffle. Both were at home for over a week in December, and at some point just over a third of their classmates were actually in school. Many missed school hours there.

In other news: at the end of the year, a week before Christmas, we got a cat. Swedish has a new word, coronahund, meaning “a dog people get due to staying at home because of covid restrictions”. I guess Nysse is a covid cat in a way. I made friends with a Morris, a neighbourhood cat, during all my days at home. I started wishing that he were around more, and the kids, especially Ingrid, have been asking for a pet for a long time already. So after a few months I decided it would make sense to have a cat of our own. According to one source, 30% of the owners of “corona dogs” have no plan what to do with the dog when the pandemic ends. I intend to keep working from home and it is very unlikely that I would ever go back to working full time in an office, so Nysse is not among them. (Plus he’s a cat, not a dog.)

Nysse has been showing some interest in the world outside the house and giving off signals that he might want to go there. We don’t feel comfortable letting him out on his own yet, so we thought try a leashed walk. We’ve made a few attempts, and he hasn’t been a huge fan.

The first step is getting him into the harness. This is effortless sometimes, and involves claws and teeth at other times. I’m less intimidated by the sharp bits than I used to be.

The first time we went out, he nearly panicked. He fled and hid under the stairs. When I tried to get him out, he got himself out of the harness and bolted right back to the door.

The second time we went out through the French doors because I thought this side might be more familiar and less scary, since he often sits there and looks out. We actually walked all the way down to the street, but Nysse really didn’t understand how the leash works and kept trying to run and take long leaps, so it was uncomfortable for both of us. We didn’t stay outside for more than a few minutes.

Today was the third time. Front door again, since he was poking his nose out when Ingrid and I went outside yesterday. This time we never even left the porch. He looked around for a few minutes but seemed to feel uncomfortable, and started nosing at the door very quickly.